Hay Buying Strategies

Hay Buying Strategies

Ed Haag

Angus Beef Bulletin

Shannon Neibergs, Washington State University (WSU) Extension specialist, says there is good news and bad news regarding the availability of feeder hay in the West.

“Hay stocks at the end of 2007 were tight, but not extraordinarily tight,” he says. “We know there is hay out there, but where it is and what kind of shape it is in remains the big question.”

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BeefTalk: Cows Should Not Be Gift-wrapped

BeefTalk: Cows Should Not Be Gift-wrapped

Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist,  NDSU Extension Service

Cow Health Protocol Cow Health Protocol

Cows should not be gift-wrapped. Very few questions are ever asked by those planning to purchase replacement cows.

Not even simple questions, such as are the cows vaccinated or what vaccinations have the cows received?

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Types Of Vaccines

Types Of Vaccines

cattlenetwork.com

There are two general categories of vaccines—live products and killed products. Modified live IBR, BVD, PI3 and Bangs are examples of live products. These are quite sensitive to light, disinfectants, and heat, so do not use chemical disinfectants in syringes or needles. Boil them. Do not reconstitute these vaccines more than 1 hour before use. Protect them from sunlight. Keep them cool. Killed vaccine examples are blackleg, malignant edema, redwater, enterotoxemia, black disease, and leptospirosis. These are less sensitive, and you can use chemical disinfectants in your needles and syringes. The vaccines should be kept cool, however, and should be protected from sunlight.

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Discounting Cutter-Bull Prices

Discounting Cutter-Bull Prices

Beef Stocker Trends

Between the increased health cost, death loss, reduced performance and general hassle, everyone knows bull calves are worth less than their castrated peers. How much less is a debate that usually revolves around soft numbers and conjecture. Not so with Frank Brazle, a long-time respected stocker specialist at Kansas State University (KSU) who retired from that position. He didn’t retire from running lots of stocker cattle, though, including purchased bull calves.

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Collapse of cattle markets demands change of direction

Collapse of cattle markets demands change of direction

Stayton Weldon

Great Falls Tribune

Media reports indicate that U.S. cattle feeders have lost $3 billion from the sales of fed cattle in just the past 11 months, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that feeders lost an astounding $23.82 per hundredweight (cwt) for fed cattle sold in October 2008 and $22.70 per hundredweight for fed cattle sold in November 2008. This represents losses on each animal sold at $298 and $284, respectively.

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Cattlemen invited to learn about new five-way vaccine

Cattlemen invited to learn about new five-way vaccine

Kathy Parker

The Pryor Daily Times

Mayes and Rogers County cattlemen are invited to learn about something new.

Meetings are set for both counties to inform producers of a new nasal five-way vaccine. The Mayes County meeting is Feb. 18, 2009, at Mayes County Fairgrounds. The Rogers County meeting is Feb. 19, 2009, at the Expo center. Both meetings will begin with supper at

6:30 p.m., followed by the information meeting.

Onset 5 IN came on the market in July. Made by Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health, Onset is the first intranasally administered, five-way modified-live virus vaccine for healthy cattle three to eight days and older.

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Schumacher, Callicrate provide input at policy meeting in Washington, D.C

Schumacher, Callicrate provide input at policy meeting in Washington, D.C

Emmons County Record

Livestock industry activists Herman Schumacher of Herreid, S.D., and Mike Callicrate of St. Francis, Kans., were among about 60 business leaders from around the country who provided input on November 6 to a legislative and public policy group in Washington, D.C., in preparation for the change in Administrations and Congress.

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Low cost cow-calf ration meeting in Dunlap, IA

Low cost cow-calf ration meeting in Dunlap, IA

KTIC

Iowa State University Extension is hosting a meeting at the Dunlap Livestock Auction on Wednesday, December 10th for local cattle producers to discuss the use of distillers grains in cow rations. This meeting will address feeding ethanol co-products in combination with low quality forages, like cornstalks or poor quality grass hay, to cows and back-grounded calves.

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Neither side likes the proposed organic rule changes

Neither side likes the proposed organic rule changes

Bob Meyer

Brownfield Network

USDA is currently accepting comments on proposed changes to the National Organic Standards. The changes are in response to calls for clarification of the rules regarding the amount of pasture organic dairy cows must have. However, it seems the proposal goes far beyond that. Mark Kastel and his Cornucopia Institute have been long-time critics of the enforcement of pasture rules but he says this just goes too far. “They put together a rule package that is so restrictive; it will probably put most organic livestock producers out of business.”

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Gas price: EPA explores tax on livestock emissions

Gas price: EPA explores tax on livestock emissions

KSNW-TV

In an effort to clean up air pollution, the federal government has a new proposal on the table: a tax on gas, but not the kind you put in your car. Instead, the tax would be aimed at ranchers and the bodily emissions that come from their livestock.

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Soil Fertility Management Helps Ease Farming Costs

Soil Fertility Management Helps Ease Farming Costs

Patti Drapala

MSU Ag Communications

Cattle Today

Mississippi farmers have no control over volatile fertilizer costs but they can use good soil fertility management to offset the effect on production expenses.

“We have to be efficient users of fertilizer, and that doesn’t mean just this product’s application rate,” said Larry Oldham, soil specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “This concept includes the whole production system of seed, soil, water, climate, pests, labor and capital.”

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How To Live Like A Local, Part 1

How To Live Like A Local, Part 1

Gary Truitt

Hoosier AG Today

More and more urban folks are moving to the country. But they are finding that rural life is much different than city living. Some try and change the rural area to fit their urban expectations, while others try and fit into their new community and adopt the local culture and customs. To help this latter group, the University of Missouri Extension system has developed a training course on rural living: Rural Living 101, a two-week crash course for ex-urbanites offered in Kirksville, St. Joseph and Nevada.

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Fat cells also linked to prion infection

Fat cells also linked to prion infection

Disease-causing misfolded proteins at home in a growing list of tissues, organs

Rachel Ehrenberg

Science n\News

Scientists have added fat cells to the roster of bodily tissues and organs that may harbor infective prions, the renegade misfolded proteins that are believed to cause scrapie in sheep and mad cow disease in cattle. Research on mice infected with scrapie, reported in the Dec. 5 PLoS Pathogens, suggests that fat cells in other animals should also be investigated.

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Rare disease blamed for killing 19 cows at Puyallup Fair

Rare disease blamed for killing 19 cows at Puyallup Fair

By BRAD WONG

Seattle Post Intelligencer

A rare outbreak of a disease called Malignant Catarrhal Fever killed 19 cows that were housed with sheep in a Puyallup Fair barn in September, officials announced Thursday.

State agriculture officials believe a herpes virus carried by the sheep, was transmitted to the cows and attacked blood vessels in their organs, possibly causing the largest outbreak of its kind involving cattle in the country.

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Economy weighing on beef cattle markets

Economy weighing on beef cattle markets

Blair Fannin

Southeast Farm Press

It’s a mixed bag when trying to predict the future of the calf and feeder cattle markets, but there may be some good news heading into 2009, according to a Texas AgriLife Extension Service economist.

“We may see (cattle) prices better than 2008 simply because of where we are in supplies,” says David Anderson.

A continued reduction in beef cattle numbers due to dry weather and higher input costs could cause prices to edge higher in 2009, according to Anderson.

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